The village of Blissfield is closer to starting work on the remodeling of the new village office after council approved both the bid for the project and the mechanism to fund it at Monday’s council meeting.
The price tag was higher than the original estimate when council purchased the former KeyBank building back in July, but it was about on course for what the architects projected after looking more in-depth at the work they planned for the building.
Council awarded the bid to Van Tassel Construction Corporation from Ottawa Lake. Their bid on the basic project was $685,000 plus three potential add-on alternates including a garage addition which the council approved making the total bid accepted at $815,000 for the renovations, and furniture. The next closest bid for both the base project and the garage was $834,300. The highest bid of the seven bids for the base bid and the garage came in at $1,030,000 by Sorenson Gross Construction Service from Flint. The garage was part of the original project but village officials had it priced separately to weigh the options, but in the end the garage that also includes storage would have been more expensive to construct later, village president Mike Gunter said. Van Tassel was the closest bidder to Blissfield as well.
For Melissa Burnor’s complete story, please see the Dec. 11, 2013, edition of The ADVANCE.